to Iraq, the Jibāl region, Syria, the frontier garrisons, and Egypt, where he conversed with the leading ḥuffāẓ.

In Balkh he received hadith from Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Khuzāʿī; in Nishapur from Abū Zakariyyā al-Muzakkī; in Baghdad from Ibn Mahdī; and in Isfahān from Abū Nuʿaym (1).

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Nakhshabī said, “He was suspected of holding the Qadari doctrine” (2).

I add: he selected from Abū Nuʿaym five fascicles that came to be known as the Wakhshiyyāt. At times he would narrate from memory. When Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī was asked about him, he said, “A great ḥāfiẓ.”

I also note that Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥusaynī al-Balkhī transmitted Sunan Abī Dāwūd from al-Wakhshī.

ʿUmar al-Maḥmūdī recounted: “When al-Wakhshī died I was just reaching puberty. After they lowered him into the grave we heard a cry. It was said that, the moment he was placed in the grave, the insects fled the cemetery. There was a valley at one end, and the insects made for it and disappeared while no one interfered with them” (3).

Ibn al-Najjār said: “He also heard hadith in Aleppo and Hamadhān from Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Mazdīn. Niẓām al-Mulk heard from him in Balkh and placed him at the head of his madrasa there.”

Al-Wakhshī said: “In Asqalān I went hungry for several days and was unable to write, then Allah provided relief.”

Al-Wakhshī passed away on the fifth of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, 471 AH.